Does Windows Vista Have a Problem With Photo Metadata?

[Jason Dunn]

One of the things that Windows Vista improved upon is working with digital photos - specifically, at the OS level it allows for manipulation of metadata. In the shell, when you're browsing through your images, you can see and edit the metadata such as the data taken, keywords, tags, and give the picture a rating. After processing my photos from RAW images using Adobe Lightroom 1.1 (to export to JPEG) and ACDSee (to re-name them and batch-inject copyright EXIF data). The other day I decided to do something I hardly ever do: add a few star ratings to the file using Windows Vista. I was surprised when I saw this error as I tried to save the file:

http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/vista-metadata-error.gif

I'd verified that the files weren't marked as read-only, so I wasn't sure why the file was incapable of being written to. I Googled the error code (0x88982F63) to see if I could discover anything, and I found a blog entry complaining about the issue (http://gcoupe.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!6AA39937A982345B!3230.entry). More telling was the discovery of this MSDN article (https://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms735425.aspx) that referenced the code as being a WINCODEC_ERR_BADMETADATAHEADER error. Aha - so it's a bad metadata header in the JPEG file!

Sure enough, if I take the original image (download here (http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/dmt/2007/jd-bad-jpeg-file.jpg)), pull it into Adobe Photoshop Elements and do a Save For Web, I get a file (http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/dmt/2007/small-jd-bad-jpeg-file.jpg) that has no problem with metadata editing under Vista. Photoshop Elements' Save For Web function strips out all metadata to make the file as small as possible, and it seems to create a file that Vista doesn't have trouble editing.

So why can't Vista deal with the JPEGs that I get from my programs? Why can I edit the metadata in other programs, but not Vista? It is incompatible with Lightroom-exported JPEGs? Or is ACDSee to blame? I have to look into this further - I'm suspecting it might be an ACDSee issue but I don't want to say for sure until I look into it further.

[RWlodarczyk]

Hi,

I'm the senior test lead at Microsoft responsible for the Windows Imaging Component. This issue was brought to my attention just overnight, so I figured that I'd reply. We're certainly interested in these types of issues, so would you mind emailing me the original file, the files after it was saved in Lightroom, and the file after it was saved in ACDSee? Please email me from my blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/rwlodarc or through the forum. (I'd rather not post my email to prevent spam.)

Thanks,

Robert.

[Jonathon Watkins]

I've pretty much given up on ACDSee. I've tried Pro and the Pro2 beta, but they can't read the star ratings I give jpgs using CS3 Bridge and Vista. I have not had a probblem with metadata swapping between Bridge and Vista. It would be nice if Vista could recognise the colour tags I insert in the files via Bridge, but it's still pretty good.

I have lost data (ratings, metadata etc) from ADCSee databases, so now I want all this data written in the files - straight away. It also helps when sending files to editors and web galleries etc. Adobe CS3 bridge is perfect in this regard as it imediately writes the info into the files in the background. However it's not the fastest program ever and when showing full screen images, ACDSee shows a significantly sharper image which is also faster to load. It's a shame that a ACDSee product seem to be dropping the ball - again. It's a case of soooo close, but no cigar. :?